Interview

Lessons Learned at Harvard

Slammed in the financial crisis, the university's endowment has been tweaked, in part to add liquidity.

Jane Mendillo has one of the most prominent jobs in the investment world. As the CEO of Harvard Management, she oversees the $32.7 billion Harvard endowment, the largest university endowment in the country.

She began the job at an inauspicious time, in July 2008, just months before the financial crisis hammered the Harvard endowment and exposed its weaknesses, including a lot of illiquid investments. The endowment declined by 27.3%...